The GOP's Asian erosion

11/8/12 7:20 PM EST

Latinos and African-Americans weren’t the only groups to deliver landslide margins to President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

According to national exit polls, Obama won 73 percent of the Asian-American vote.

While Asians only constituted 2 percent of the national electorate, in some states they made up a considerably higher proportion. In California, for example, they represented 11 percent of the vote.

“With 73 percent of AAPIs [Asian-American and Pacific Islanders] voting for Obama, we are clearly an undeniable and unshakable political power,” said California Democratic Rep. Mike Honda, chairman emeritus of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, in an email. “As the fastest growing ethnic community in the country, we are the margin of victory.”

Asian voters weren't always so far out of reach for Republicans.

In 1992, exit polls showed President George H.W. Bush captured the Asian vote 55 percent to 31 percent. But the end of the Cold War loosened the GOP ties of some Asian subgroups, marking the beginning of a two-decade-long free fall that landed 3 of every 4 Asian voters in the Democratic camp Tuesday.